WHAT’S ON MY MIND…???

I like to see myself as a quiet, restrained person who guards against self-indulgence. Quite recently, I was described as unassuming by a colleague. Then a former classmate in his uncharitable moment described me as timid and uninspiring. I usually retire to bed at the end of the day, playing the day’s activities in my mind as I drift to sleep. It is a little self-indulgent ritual I allow my soul to relish occasionally. But the description I heard from my boss last week is an all-time best. He described me as maverick. I think it is a description I would gladly embrace because I know I would be in good company. Think of me as a Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Jacob Ress-Mogg or even Kofi Wayo. What of Donald Trump?  Not sure!

The newly crowned maverick was at the office of the DVLA this week. Unfortunately, I failed my driving test. My instructor was disappointed but I wasn’t, primarily because nobody demanded money from me to fix my ‘misfortune’. Perhaps I failed the test because my mind was focused on my now crumbled love relationship instead of the task at hand. I went fishing at the NRSC later in the week and the statistics was damning.

I know I’m going to bore a few readers but I simply cannot gloss over the figures I stumbled upon. Did you know 19088 people died from 114770 road accidents between 2001 and 2010? Well, that is the figure and that makes road accidents the second major cause of deaths in Ghana after malaria. That means we were losing 1909 persons on the average from 11477 road accidents over the period. Scary? I know! But this is just official statistics, the actual figure may be slightly higher as some accidents go unreported.

I was curious to know the disaggregated statistics so I went digging further. I’d plead once again for your indulgence to bore you more with some alarming figures. Did you know 60% of persons who lost their lives from road accidents between 2001 and 2010 were between the ages of 16 and 45 years? Indeed 4469 of the dead over the period were between the ages of 26 and 35 years. 2982 were between 16 and 25 years, 2949 were between 36-45. 824 of the dead were over 65 years old. Unfortunately, the data wasn’t disaggregated to account for gender of victims and the make of the vehicles.

In 2016, we lost 2198 persons. The figure for 2015 was 1634. In 2017, we had 2076 fatalities from 12843 cases.

Addressing a news conference last week, Chief Executive Officer of the National Road Safety Commission, May Obiri Yeboah disclosed that 180 persons lost their lives in January 2018, an increase of 14.3% from the same period in 2017. In all 3300 pedestrians were knocked down with 879 of them losing their lives and 2421 sustaining various degrees of injury. Private vehicles topped the list of vehicles involved in accidents in the country in 2017. According to Mrs. Obiri Yeboah, 8877 private vehicles were involved in accidents within the period whilst 8080 commercial vehicles incidents were recorded.

The other day, I had to get down from a trotro because I had to slant my legs before I could fit into the space on the mini bus and that made me feel very uncomfortable. The driver and his mate were understandably irritated, admonishing me to get my ‘private car’ if I wanted to feel comfortable. I realized almost every other passenger of average height had to slant his/her legs to fit into the space provided. The question on my mind was; what would happen in case of an accident?

Despite the glaring dangers on our roads, whenever there is an accident, we are quick to blame it on spiritual causes. It does not matter whether a driver was driving recklessly or not. The accident must have been caused by some dark forces somewhere. The cause of the accident is left uninvestigated and life goes on.

Did you know you’re more likely to die from road accidents if you are male? Yes, brothers, we are endangered and the statistics is skewed against us. 1562 males died from road accidents in 2017 alone, that is 75.2% of the total figure for the year. This worrying statistic must change and the change starts with you. Drive safe and even if you don’t drive, make sure the one driving you, always does…

The taxi driver was unusually early today. The normal routine was for me to finish early, call him and wait for about ten minutes in front of my gate. It is an inefficient habit that I’ve learnt to accommodate because frankly speaking he is a decent man and a disciplined driver on the road. But on this Friday, he came five minutes before the time he was supposed to pick me up. I hurriedly picked my bag and went out to greet my friend. He said a silent prayer before shouting ‘Amen’, I often tell him that is the only religious word he can use when I am with him in the car.

After going through my phone to check my schedule, I turned to him to remind him to tune to Citi FM so I could catch the six o’clock news. But the presenter on Peace FM was talking to a correspondent asking about a young lady involved in an accident. It was obvious he was interested in the story so I avoided repeating my request and instead glanced through WhatsApp messages on my phone. After the reporter finished speaking, he turned to me and said in Twi; ‘they said Ebony is dead, she died in a car crash’. I had gone through all the major news sites a couple of minutes ago and didn’t see anything like that so I was sure it was a mistake…

Why am I even talking about my driver and how I received the news of the death? It was this man who insisted I listen to Ebony’s song. I indulged him and asked him to play it one evening when we were stuck in traffic. That song was titled ‘kupe’, it was the first time hearing the song. I instantly fell in love with it. The first thing I did the next day at the office was to check out videos of the songstress. I wasn’t left disappointed, and from that day in September of last year, I became a huge fan of her art. It was interesting to know my liberal friend Benny was also a huge fan.

I had no idea how big Ebony was to female millennials in Ghana till a couple of weeks ago. She definitely had a deep place in the hearts and minds of these young girls and yet our conservative society slut-shamed her just us we always do with women who are confident about their sexuality and bodies. The impact of her music on the feminist struggle was very huge in a subtle way. She was able to do what feminist activism had failed to do for a very long time, reaching out and giving a voice to many young girls in the country.  A friend sent me two video clips a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know what the occasion at Mamfe Methodist Girls’ SHS was but it was thrilling seeing thousands of young girls going gaga over the tracks of this young lady. The feminist group ‘PepperDem’ captures the legacy of Ebony succinctly in their eulogy of the 90s bad girl. “Ebony was a young, vibrant and purposed lady whose daring take on life provides a unique example for many young Ghanaian women… She constantly challenged and disrupted the status quo, this encourages us to do even more… Ebony took charge of her dreams at a very early stage in unconventional ways, dropping out of school to pursue her passion. And while at it, she never for once gave in to the backlash that seemed to surpass her support… Through her singing, she probed, questioned, challenged and made all of us uncomfortable with our social conventions in subtle ways. She dared to be different, free and true to herself. She owned her happiness in a world that prescribed happiness, especially for women.”

That sums up the free spirited Ebony that I’m surely going to miss…